Seventy of the nation’s chefs, gourmets and industry leaders were asked to submit a list, in order of preference, of what each believed to be the best restaurants. No judge could vote for a restaurant they owned, worked for, have a financial interest in, or consult for.

“Next year’s results in the 2016 issue will show which of them is getting better, who is slipping — and what new talent is giving the old guard a run,” says Jacob Richler, Editor-in-Chief of the magazine.

Some of the top picks in the magazine include recipes so home cooks can try replicating the signature dishes.

London added restaurants in the past year at the fastest net rate since at least 1991 and Chef Simon Rogan’s Fera is the best newcomer, according to Harden’s London Restaurants.

Fera at Claridge’s hotel in Mayfair focuses on extracting maximum flavor from the best ingredients, many of which come from Rogan’s own farm. Harden’s also singled out notable newcomers in East London, including Typing Room in Bethnal Green, backed by Jason Atherton, and Merchant’s Tavern in Shoreditch, a casual establishment selling unfussy modern European food.

“Anyone who dines out in London knows there has been an explosion of restaurants in recent years, but our results quantify just how rapid the growth has been in the past 12 months,” Peter Harden, the guide’s co-founder, said in a phone interview before publication of a new edition Wednesday.

The net addition of 101 restaurants in the year was more than a third higher than the previous record in the 2006 edition, according to the guide, which has tracked openings since 1991.

Chef Brett Graham’s The Ledbury wins the title of Top Gastronomic Experience for the first time in the 2015 guide, displacing Le Gavroche, which falls to second. Dinner by Heston Blumenthal is third. The Ledbury is also top for food. All three are established restaurants, in Le Gavroche’s case dating to 1967.

The Wolseley retains top place for business and for breakfast/brunch; Chez Bruce remains favorite restaurant and the Anchor & Hope best bar/pub food. Clos Maggiore is the most romantic.

Michelin-starred Fera is highest newcomer, placing fourth in the overall ranking for food, service and ambiance, behind The Ledbury, Kitchen Table and Le Gavroche. Pied a Terre is fifth. Ratings and reviews are based on the contributions of more than 6,250 diners.

The average price of dinner at venues in the guide is 49.46 pounds (C$88.25 ), up from 47.68 pounds last year.

Here are London’s Top 10 for gastronomic experience with last year’s places in brackets:

In the year, 47 restaurants closed, the smallest number this millennium.

“Harden’s London Restaurants 2015” costs 12.99 pounds and is available in bookshops, online and via http://www.hardens.com/.

]]>http://o.canada.com/travel/london-adding-new-restaurants-at-a-fast-clip/feed1London restaurantbloombergcanadaMardi Gras Grill brings fried crocodile to Saskatoonhttp://o.canada.com/life/food/mardi-gras-grill-brings-fried-crocodile-to-saskatoon
http://o.canada.com/life/food/mardi-gras-grill-brings-fried-crocodile-to-saskatoon#respondThu, 09 Oct 2014 16:14:30 +0000http://o.canada.com/?p=526391]]>What does crocodile taste like? We head to the kitchen of Mardi Gras Grill to see how it’s made and how it tastes.

Better us eating the croc than the other way around!

]]>http://o.canada.com/life/food/mardi-gras-grill-brings-fried-crocodile-to-saskatoon/feed00_snll6c6ypostmedianews1Five places to discover the Saskatoon food scenehttp://o.canada.com/travel/five-places-to-discover-the-saskatoon-food-scene
http://o.canada.com/travel/five-places-to-discover-the-saskatoon-food-scene#respondWed, 03 Sep 2014 18:24:37 +0000http://o.canada.com/?p=508461]]>Surrounded by one of the greatest places in this country for growing food, it only makes sense that a city like Saskatoon has some of the most fantastic restaurants anywhere. The growing food scene is fueled by a strong economy that draws newcomers to the city and the presence of the University of Saskatchewan which helps keeps the population young and creative. Here are five places to savour the flavours of Saskatoon:

1. Ayden Kitchen and Bar265 3rd Ave S

Considered by many to be the city’s top restaurant, Ayden is hip, yet unpretentious, serving inspired versions of the chef’s favourite comfort foods. The menu is a collaboration between chefs Dale MacKay and Nathan Guggenheimer who take advantage of the freshest produce and finest meats harvested nearby. MacKay was the winner of the first Top Chef Canada competition on Food Network. He and Guggenheimer have worked in fine restaurants around the world, but have settled in MacKay’s home town of Saskatoon to bring their culinary savvy to the Prairies.

Located in the historic Birks building in downtown Saskatoon, Truffles is also in the conversation for the city’s top restaurant. Its long, bright space with continental decor immerses diners in a European atmosphere. Chef and owner Lee Helman serves French-inspired cuisine, but with a Saskatchewan twist, using only the finest ingredients sourced locally. Open for brunch and dinner, the menu changes with the seasons. The breakfast poutine of two poached eggs set on a bed of fresh fries, white cheddar and topped with demi glace, hollandaise sauce and smoked bacon, is a delight.

Go to where all the local chefs go to source their ingredients. Head out to the Saskatoon Farmers Market. During the growing season, you can marvel at the bountiful crops of fruits and vegetables for sale, but it’s also a great place to sample a myriad of fresh foods that you can eat on the spot, like perogies, jams, tamales and other delicacies sold by an ever-changing selection of vendors. The indoor pavillion is open six days a week, all year round, but the outside market is open on Saturday, Sunday and Wednesday during the growing season. Everything is closed on Mondays.

Located in Saskatoon’s up-and-coming Riversdale neighbourhood, the Park Café and Diner is an old-fashioned eatery that has the simple mission of serving you top-notch comfort food, quickly and efficiently. If there’s no room at a booth, which happens a lot because it’s so popular, you can wait at the counter with a coffee and admire the retro decor. The café is only opened for breakfast and lunch.

Located directly across the street from the historic Delta Bessborough Hotel in downtown Saskatoon, the Spadina Freehouse is well situated. It has a large, airy patio for those wishing to dine al fresco and an informal, but stylish, interior dining area. The menu is a fusion of world cuisines with some imaginative takes on old standards. It’s a great place to relax and unwind with friends.www.thefreehouse.com/spadina

]]>http://o.canada.com/travel/five-places-to-discover-the-saskatoon-food-scene/feed0Ayden Kitchen & BarmarkstachiewAyden Kitchen & BarBreakfast poutineSaskatoon Farmers MarketPark Cafe and DinerHandout photo/Spadina FreehouseLive Chat: Should restaurants get rid of tipping?http://o.canada.com/business/live-chat-should-restaurants-get-rid-of-tipping
http://o.canada.com/business/live-chat-should-restaurants-get-rid-of-tipping#respondTue, 13 May 2014 19:42:19 +0000http://o.canada.com/?p=445300]]>A new restaurant in B.C. made headlines this past week when it decided to do away with tipping.

And while a no-tipping restaurant is news in Canada, it’s part of a growing trend that is seeing many restaurants around the world give up tipping in favour of higher menu prices, allowing restaurant owners to pay their employees a higher wage that is not dependent on the generosity of customers.

Would you prefer a restaurant with this policy, or do you think tipping should remain standard practice?

Join our live chat as we discuss this trend, whether it’s a sound business model and what it says about consumer behaviour.

On our panel:

Bruce McAdams is a professor in the University of Guelph‘s School of Hospitality, Food and Tourism Management who has studied how gratuities affect restaurant operations. He has also worked in the hospitality industry for nearly three decades and was was previously the vice-president of operations with Oliver & Bonacini Restaurants.

]]>http://o.canada.com/business/live-chat-should-restaurants-get-rid-of-tipping/feed0Money Monitor 20121115rdunleyRené Redzepi on innovation at Noma, ‘World’s Best Restaurant’http://o.canada.com/life/food/rene-redzepi-on-innovation-at-noma-worlds-best-restaurant
http://o.canada.com/life/food/rene-redzepi-on-innovation-at-noma-worlds-best-restaurant#commentsTue, 13 May 2014 14:34:12 +0000http://o.canada.com/?p=444053]]>What happens when you reach the top of your game? When for years running, you’re named best in the world at what you do. At the forefront of New Nordic cuisine and a return to nature and natural ingredients, René Redzepi has enjoyed great success at the helm of his Copenhagen-based restaurant Noma. Named the best in the world by Restaurant magazine for three consecutive years (2010, 2011 and 2012), then second best in 2013, Redzepi and his team are back on top for 2014 with the reservation requests to match.

In the James Beard Award-winning A Work in Progress (Phaidon Press, 2013), which is a three-book set comprised of Recipes, Journal and Snapshots, Redzepi shares some of the challenges that come with international acclaim and recognition. It was 2011 when he started writing the journal; he had released his first book, Noma: Time and Place in Nordic Cuisine (Phaidon Press, 2010), and was experiencing continued success at the restaurant. It wasn’t all rosy though; Redzepi was burned-out. Through writing a journal, he says he sought to answer the question: “How do you get beyond success and continuously find that inspiration and joy in the work even though people are telling you you’ve reached the ultimate goal?”

Redzepi writes about the limitations that come with success in his journal, which covers the day-to-day in the restaurant and his approach to creativity and innovation. He explains in an interview that writing the journal was a cathartic process that helped him overcome the fear of losing the spotlight. “I’ve gone through that; I’ve been afraid of making the right decisions. Afraid of suddenly thinking that’s it, we’ve reached the mountain top,” he says. “Don’t twitch anymore, don’t move; the grid is set. Don’t fiddle around too much because then you’re going to lose the success. Don’t jeopardize anything. And when you’re working a 90-hour work week on minimum wage, you sort of lose the fun.”

Dismissively referred to as “seal f*ckers” by some skeptics in the early years of Noma, founders Redzepi and Claus Meyer’s dedication to serving Nordic food products since they opened in 2003 has influenced great cultural change in the attitude towards ingredients. Redzepi offers the example of chickweed, a common weed that tastes similar to baby corn. “It’s quite succulent and delicious. When we first put it on, we might as well have had crocodile on the menu. It was such a weird, exotic thing to eat a green like that. And today, people are eating mosses and pastes of black ants so there is an acceptance that the edible world is much bigger than we realized.”

PHOTO: Ditte Isager/Phaidon PressBranches

The public perception of chefs has also changed drastically in the more than 20 years that Redzepi has been working in the industry. “Most of the time I’m in a little, lovely kitchen and that’s my life,” he says. “But at the same time you think to yourself, ‘What are we going to leave behind to the next generation of David Chang [Momofuku restaurant group] or Ben Shewry [Attica in Melbourne]?’ all of these young, 30-ish cooks that are really taking the limelight these years. What are we going to leave behind? And you want to do it right so that’s also why we support the MAD symposium and the Nordic Food Lab as well too.”

The multi-disciplinary and international collaborations that are supported by the annual MAD symposium and Nordic Food Lab provide new avenues for looking at food and food culture, and are key to innovation at Noma. In fact, it was Brazilian chef Alex Atala’s presentation on insects at MAD that inspired the search for Danish ants at Noma. Black wood ants that taste of lemongrass resulted in the creation of the dish Bouquet of Greens and Black Ant Dipping, the recipe for which is among the 100 in the Recipes volume of A Work in Progress. Guests were asked to swipe the bouquet through a dollop of crème fraiche sprinkled with ants.

“I think the best way I can explain innovation is that it’s your ability to take your past, put your intuition into place and then see the synergies with the past and the now. That’s when something new happens,” Redzepi says. “The more you fill yourself with the knowledge that surrounds food and food culture, the better you become at actually cooking. I think it’s a special moment in cooking right where we need a new discussion but we need to figure out what’s going on and what are we going to take into the next decade. Where’s this all going to end? Nobody knows but let’s see if we can have a good, sound discussion about it.”

All photos from A Work in Progress: Journal, Recipes and Snapshots by René Redzepi $59.95, Phaidon 2013, phaidon.com

]]>http://o.canada.com/life/food/rene-redzepi-on-innovation-at-noma-worlds-best-restaurant/feed4Sweet water pike grilled with summer cabbage from A Work in Progress: Journal, Recipes and Snapshots by René Redzepi, Phaidon 2013lbrehautA Work in Progress: Journal, Recipes and Snapshots by René Redzepi, Phaidon 2013BranchesSlowly sautéed celeriac and truffle sauceIcy sloe berries and brown cheese ganacheIs it even possible to choose the world’s top 50 restaurants?http://o.canada.com/travel/is-it-even-possible-to-choose-the-worlds-top-50-restaurants
Mon, 28 Apr 2014 13:02:25 +0000http://postmediacanadadotcom.wordpress.com/?p=436330]]>By Richard Vines

El Cellar de Can Roca was overwhelmed after it won the World’s 50 Best Restaurants title for the first time in 2013.

The waiting list grew to one year and three people were employed to turn down requests for tables, said Josep Roca, one of three brothers who own the establishment in Girona, Spain.

The day after Noma won in 2010, about 100,000 people tried to book online, enough to fill the Copenhagen restaurant for years, according to chef Rene Redzepi.

“A few years ago, it was a very dark time for my restaurant,” said chef Massimo Bottura of Osteria Francescana, in Modena, Italy. “When it was named best in Italy and the highest climber in the 50 Best, it made me determined to save the restaurant as I attempted to evolve Italian cuisine.

”All the gastronomic guides have now named us best in Italy for four years in a row. In any other country, that would settle the matter, but in Italy, people are still debating. We are just like that. The one thing you must remember in Italy is: Don’t mess with your grandmother’s recipe,” he said in an interview.

If you think the 50 Best is hype, I am part of it. I chair the U.K. and Ireland voting panel for the awards, which will be announced tonight at the Guildhall in London. The organizers say 47 of the Top 50 chefs will attend.

The World’s 50 Best Restaurants is a quirky list and no one claims it is definitive. Avant-garde restaurants tend to place higher than traditional establishments whose gastronomy has stood the test of time. There’s an element of fashion as the chefs of the moment (many of whom are friends) win greater recognition than the grand old culinary masters.

In Paris, for example, most of the traditional gastronomic restaurants such as those of Alain Ducasse are missing from the Top 50, while there is room for less-elevated establishments such as Le Chateaubriand and Septime. (I am a fan of both.) Ducasse didn’t show up when he won for lifetime achievement.

The 50 Best list often comes under attack, and I can see why. The term “best restaurant” doesn’t mean a lot, and when you look at the rankings, they are confusing. You might go a long way to find anyone who thought in 2013 that Dinner by Heston Blumenthal was the seventh-best in the world when the Fat Duck placed at 33.

What the list does is to provide a snapshot of the establishments that are in favor with restaurant-business insiders who dine out regularly. My panel includes some of the U.K.’s finest chefs, for example. I’d like to tell you who they are but the list is confidential to cut the risk of lobbying.

The annual event is important in itself as an opportunity for chefs around the world to discuss food, ingredients, cooking techniques and restaurants. Absentees this year may include Blumenthal, who is traveling; and Daniel Boulud (Daniel), who will be with his wife as she is about to give birth; and several other chefs.

Chefs from as far away as Lima have made the journey, for what is now a gathering lasting several days.

My memories from last year include looking along the bar during an after-party at Roka and seeing Blumenthal, Thomas Keller (Per se) and several of the world’s leading chefs. An early-hours taxi ride to Clove Club saw me dancing wildly with Bottura while Redzepi looked on.

That was an embarrassing memory in the morning.

The awards started in 2002 as a feature in Restaurant, a U.K. trade magazine owned by William Reed Business Media. The list was a back-of-an-envelope idea to attract readers. The fact no one bothered to define “best” reflects this casual beginning.

The list is compiled from the votes of 26 panels around the world. Each panel has a chairman who picks 35 members, consisting of food writers, chefs, restaurateurs and gourmets. I have headed the U.K. and Ireland panel — unpaid — for three years.

Panelists must have dined at the restaurants for which they vote in the 18 months before voting. Members list seven establishments in order of preference, including at least three outside of their geographical region. The votes are collated in October. I don’t know the results before they are published.

El Bulli won in the first year and triumphed four more times Ferran Adria decided to close it. Other winners include the French Laundry (2003, 2004), the Fat Duck (2005), Noma (2010-12) and El Celler de Can Roca.

Awards already announced for 2014 include Lifetime Achievement: Fergus Henderson of St. John, London; and Best Female Chef: Helena Rizzo of Mani, Sao Paulo.

The awards are sponsored by San Pellegrino & Acqua Panna.

– Richard Vines is the chief food critic for Bloomberg. He is U.K. and Ireland chairman of the World’s 50 Best Restaurants awards. Opinions expressed are his own.

]]>restaaurantbloombergcanada‘elBulli 2005-2011’: Chef Ferran Adrià on his revolutionary restaurant’s final yearshttp://o.canada.com/life/food/elbulli-2005-2011-chef-ferran-adria-on-his-revolutionary-restaurants-final-years
http://o.canada.com/life/food/elbulli-2005-2011-chef-ferran-adria-on-his-revolutionary-restaurants-final-years#commentsTue, 18 Mar 2014 17:28:28 +0000http://o.canada.com/?p=411480]]>Restaurants typically open and close; not so in the case of the wildly influential elBulli. The culinary mecca in Catalonia, Spain served its last guests on July 30, 2011 and started the transition from restaurant to foundation. Headed by celebrated Spanish chef Ferran Adrià, the foundation will eventually encompass a culinary/creative think tank and research facility, online resource elBulli DNA/ Bullipedia, and a museum/workshop elBulli 1846.

Adrià recently toured North America in support of the seven-volume elBulli 2005-2011 (Phaidon, 2014). The first six volumes comprise the complete catalogue of the final years of the restaurant – described as “its most fertile and prolific period.” Every single dish that was served at elBulli from 2005 to 2011 is included, accompanied by photographs, recipes, finishing and presentation instructions, cutlery requirements and details on how to eat each dish. Colour-coded by season, the recipes follow the elBulli coursing sequence: cocktails, snacks, tapas, pre-desserts, desserts and the signature morphings.

As Adrià explains in a Toronto interview (translated by Sofia Perez), “The catalogue is the umbilical cord [between restaurant and foundation]. It’s 10,000 pages if we add them all up. It has taken us 14 years to put together these books; 2000 until now. It’s been a tool that allows us to [undertake] this whole process. It would be unthinkable to do it without these books.” The seventh volume, entitled Evolutionary Analysis, offers an in-depth look at the creative process and growth of elBulli during the restaurant’s last six seasons, covering organization, philosophy, products, technology, elaborations, and style and characteristics.

Created in 1998, elBullitaller, or the workshop, was integral to the restaurant’s creative output; 100 new dishes were developed there each year. The workshop archives – meticulously kept – enabled authors Adrià, Juli Soler and Albert Adrià to take an unprecedented look at elBulli’s approach in Evolutionary Analysis. Adrià is recognized internationally for his indelible mark on modern gastronomy, with the emphasis often placed on innovations such as spherification, foams and deconstruction, all of which he pioneered.

Of the emphasis that has been placed on his revolutionary use of technology, Adrià says with a laugh, “People say that the food at elBulli was very technological; people were completely wrong because they didn’t even know what technology was.” He explains that tools such as the siphon (used to make culinary foams) and sous vide improve the process but stresses that humanity has always used tools in this way, regardless of field. “You can decide whether to use it or not but this is less important than what people opine,” he says, adding that when looking at the history of elBulli, the use of technology and the emotional response they strove for were considered to be two different endeavours.

When it comes to describing the cuisine of elBulli, molecular cuisine is the most commonly used term, although there are others. “There’s been confusion here: modernist, molecular, vanguard, techno-emotional…,” Adrià says. “For me, it’s logical to say techno-emotional because the person who created this name, [Pau Arenós], is the person who was with us in Spain when we were creating this type of food. The logical thing is to use what someone from there came up with. We’ll see what happens in 10 years though. If we continue this way, then we could say that it is a type of cuisine that had many different names,” he laughs.

In Evolutionary Analysis, the authors describe the sixth sense, or emotional reaction, as one of the key aspects of elBulli’s cuisine; “the intellectual, non-culinary element.” When designing dishes, Adrià explains that it wasn’t always easy to anticipate emotional reactions due to the cultural component. “If I deconstruct a tortilla de patatas [Spanish omelette] and if we have a Canadian gentleman come, and he doesn’t know the original recipe, there’s no provocation there,” he says. “But for a Spaniard yes because it’s something that they know. If I served rabbit brains, I knew it would be provocative. We wanted you to reflect on what was being served.”

He continues, offering the example of a preparation consisting of water and hazelnut oil that they experimented with during the winter of 2008-09. “We’d put a plum tart next to it; people would say, ‘Water with oil?’ and we knew that it was a shock to people. We wanted to make people reflect on the magic of the texture of oil, and that you never notice it when you eat it in a sauce; you don’t really appreciate the texture. But if you put it on your lips and you feel it, it’s magical and you’re eating oil; people don’t normally do that. We knew more or less when we wanted to provoke and when we didn’t. Sometimes we didn’t want to provoke; we just wanted to move people, or [evoke] a memory of the past.”

Adrià expresses the opinion that the Evolutionary Analysis is the most important volume in the set. “It explains the things that are hard to see. That’s what we want people to reflect on. Nobody really speaks about, if I haven’t explained it to them, the importance of Japan from 2003 to 2011 at elBulli – especially from 2005 to 2011. No one talks about that. Molecular cooking is what they talk about or spherification. That’s the problem with elBulli; every year we changed. It was chaos,” he adds with a laugh.

On their first trip to Japan, in 2002, the elBulli team discovered obulato (in addition to a host of other Japanese products) – a fine, edible sheet, which is used to encase medicine. In 2004, they used obulato to make the dish ‘Transparent empanadilla with redcurrant and eucalyptus,’ and then as a new type of pasta in 2009’s ‘Vanishing ravioli’ (to name just two applications). Playing on the properties of obulato – it vanishes when moistened – diners were instructed to dip the ravioli, using their fingers, into a green pine cone infusion. The optimum dip was three seconds, and the ravioli had to be eaten immediately after dipping. A second too long and the wrapper would disappear before their eyes, leaving the filling behind.

The connection with Japan offered many influences by way of unique products and techniques, but that wasn’t all. Following the visit in 2002, the authors write in the Evolutionary Analysis, “It could be said that the spirit of Japan took hold of us, and that if we were to this point intimately Catalan or Spanish, we were now also a little Japanese. The soul of Japan was entering elBulli.”

“For me, Japan was soul more than the products,” Adrià says. “The products were important and allowed you to do things you hadn’t done, or new techniques, or new tools, or new elaborations but the important thing was the soul. I’m very pragmatic as you can see, and this part is not at all pragmatic from Japan; very emotional, moving, we loved it; it was fantastic. It was a balance between pragmatism and this part.”

It was this “poetic sentiment” inspired by Japan, as well as a return to the regional cuisine of the Mediterranean, that the authors see as defining elBulli in the final years. However, it was the technique-concept search – “in which techniques and concepts are the driving force for creativity” – that resulted in the most imitated aspects of elBulli’s style (spherification, foams, hot jellies etc.). When asked about his preferred techniques or products, Adrià says with a laugh, “There are a lot. That’s what was wonderful about the magic of elBulli; the amazing amount of techniques and new products that we created; elaborations. Obulato – it’s magic. Creativity is not always about doing complex things; it’s to see things that others don’t see.”

Freeze-drying – commercially produced freeze-dried products were used at elBulli prior to 2004. In 2005, they took the process in-house. Dishes include: 1093 White sangria in suspension; 1134 Carrot-LYO foam with hazelnut foam-air and Córdoba spices

Deconstruction – in elBulli 2005-2011, the authors write: “elBulli cuisine, particularly in the final years, was not deconstructed cuisine.” However, Adrià is credited with its emergence in the early 90s. Deconstructed dishes contain the original flavours of a referenced dish, although the form and physical presentation are quite different. Dishes include: 1484 Carbonara; 1466 Cherries in kirsch

Since the restaurant opened in Little Italy on March 22, 2013, van Gameren and his team have been serving Spanish-inspired fare accompanied by barman Michael Webster’s craft cocktails from 6 p.m. to 2 a.m., seven days a week. In seven months, Bar Isabel has garnered many a rave review, and was named Canada’s Best New Restaurant 2013 by Air Canada’s enRoute magazine.

Van Gameren’s nose-to-tail cooking at The Black Hoof was credited for setting off a charcuterie trend, not just in Toronto but across the country. After leaving the Hoof partnership in 2011, he joined Max Rimaldi’s Italian restaurant Enoteca Sociale, and then proceeded to eat his way through Italy, Spain, France and Denmark for two months. Upon returning to Toronto, he partnered with Rimaldi on what would become Bar Isabel. What van Gameren experienced in Spain stayed with him; namely the conviviality and the restraint exercised in cooking.

He points to Quimet y Quimet in Barcelona as an example of one of the most memorably perfect meals he had in Spain. “There are two people behind the bar and they’re just opening cans; Spain is known for their canned seafood,” van Gameren says. “There was no cooking involved. They had fish, foie gras and there was nowhere to sit. It was such a casual, convivial atmosphere, and it was affordable and there was alcohol everywhere.”

In terms of the restraint aspect, he explains that many chefs try to put their whole personality on each individual dish. What he learned in Spain is that it’s really about the entire meal and the progression of it. “Food is food. Food is sometimes a little bit too precious and that’s what I mean by restraint. Just being able to say let’s not look at this [simple] dish as if it’s not good enough or not cool enough,” van Gameren says. “Let’s look at the whole enjoyment of the meal from start to finish, and the progression of dishes and eating. We’re constantly trying to have dishes hit the table throughout your meal to keep your attention and keep it exciting.”

Van Gameren emphasizes that the same approach is taken with the cocktails, crafted by barman Michael Webster. Every effort is taken to create precise, balanced cocktails that rely on quality ingredients and quality spirits. “With the food and the cocktails we try to be unique and add our own twists to it,” van Gameren says. “That’s kind of where it gels together and probably [exhibits] the most inspiration of Spain – just from restraint and simplicity, and relying on good ingredients.”

Michael Webster, formerly of Momofuku and The Drake Hotel, has created a cocktail list that includes the house signature Isabel Fashioned – bourbon, bacon sugar – and “We Choose Yer Own Adventure” where the bartender talks with the guest and crafts a cocktail specifically for them. “We usually write [the recipe] down in the book and put the guest’s name on it so that when they come in we can just look at the recipe and re-create it,” Webster says. “That adds a very personable element to the space.”

The classic and house cocktails work with the menu, and Webster challenges the commonly held assumption that cocktails don’t pair well with food. “I don’t’ think as a city Toronto is quite there in understanding that a lot of cocktails do pair well with food. It’s still a very wine-focused city.” Webster says. He often makes cocktail recommendations based on the dishes guests have ordered, and the average number of craft cocktails ordered at Bar Isabel exceeds any other venue he has worked at.

Webster, along with chef de cuisine Brandon Olsen (formerly of The Black Hoof) and general manager Guy Rawlings (Bellwoods Brewery, Bar Volo) are key members of the 25-30 person staff. “They really believe in what we’re doing here. It’s not just a job; they’re all genuinely very excited to be a part of this. To have a little bit of responsibility for that definitely is super rewarding for me but without all of them, it wouldn’t be possible,” van Gameren says. “It’s just nice to have a healthy and exciting workplace even [seven] months in.”

Van Gameren recalls an email he received, asking if Webster was an owner. He took this as a great compliment; a sign of empowered staff that are as invested as possible in the business. “People do think that I’m an owner,” Webster adds. “It’s just because there are a lot of people that work here that are very confident, and it’s not hard to be confident with what’s coming out of the kitchen. The staff in the back, they’re militant and they’re precise. They’re like ninjas. I’ve never worked with a kitchen that’s more dedicated to perfection every time; I think that energy quickly stems to the front of house.”

Webster recalls how everyone pitched in to get the space ready before opening; servers and kitchen staff were sanding and helping lay tiles well into the wee hours of the morning. Van Gameren worked with friend and designer Marx Kruis on the interior of Bar Isabel; the custom cherrywood bar and 10,000 lbs. of concrete floor tiles made in Mexico.

“When you go to Europe, you feel the age on everything back when there was a true kind of tradesman working on spaces. That’s something we really wanted to bring here,” van Gameren says. “The original design was completely different. It was only in the last month when everything really started to come together – where the room felt much different.” The intended name, Crown Cooks, just didn’t seem to fit with the look and feel of the finished space; feminine and sexy. “That’s why you don’t name a book before you’ve written it,” van Gameren adds.

Recipe

Older Flame

Michael Webster’s Older Flame cocktail is a take on the Old Flame, which was on the original Bar Isabel menu. Webster uses a dried fruit-infused gin, which includes mangoes, apricots, raspberries, blueberries and some rooibos tea for colour. Webster points out that many people have an aversion to egg whites because they can give off an undesirable odour at room temperature, which doesn’t affect the flavour profile of the drink. “We finish it with a Chartreuse flame; basically the proteins try to come back together so if you ‘brûlée’ the top, it seals in the aroma,” he says. “People see the cocktail come up on the bar then you do a little flame: ‘What the hell is that?’ It looks really pretty.”

Ingredients:

Method:

Dry shake all ingredients in a cocktail shaker, add ice, shake again, and double strain into a coupette glass. Finish with a Misto*-sprayed Green Chartreuse flame!

*A Misto is an olive oil mister/sprayer that is also a bartender’s tool. In this case, the Misto is filled with Green Chartreuse and, while holding a lighter in between the nozzle and the cocktail, sprayed on the surface of the cocktail.

For the tropical fruit-infused gin

Webster gets dried tropical fruit from markets, independent grocers, and tea shops, which he finds are usually “the best and cheapest in the end.”

You’ll need 5 heaping tablespoons of dried fruit for a 1.14 L bottle, or 3.5-4 tablespoons for a 750 ml bottle). Using a large mason jar or other container, add the dried fruit and gin and taste for desired strength and flavour every couple of hours after agitating slightly.

Once the desired flavour profile has been achieved, strain through cheesecloth squeezing every last drop from the soaked fruit.

“It’s not easy eating one ant; one ant is a challenge. Something in you says ‘This is not edible,’” Atala says in an interview. “It can be even worse. We drink milk; it’s a secretion of another animal. We eat honey, which is the secretion of an insect. Cultural barriers sometimes are a block – a mental block that we have and we probably don’t know that we have, so we always try to push this on our menu.”

American chef Daniel Patterson of two-Michelin-starred Coi in San Francisco (as well as Plum, Haven and Alta CA), who authored Coi: Stories and Recipes (Phaidon Press, 2013) and is friends with Atala says he found great inspiration in a visit to D.O.M. “That ant inspired a lot of us. I remember being out in my garden and this one kind of flower had ants on it. Before I would have been annoyed but now I’m like, ‘Oh, that’s pretty good!’” Patterson says. “I think that’s what [readers] can get out of Alex’s book; a sense of curiosity and discovery, and kind of openness to the world. I think that’s what we both hope to bring.”

Atala stresses that they always ask guests at D.O.M. if they are open to new ingredients, such as ants, before they serve them. After all, food should be fun and pleasurable even when facing cultural barriers. The ants served at D.O.M. in such dishes as ‘Ants and pineapple’ and ‘Langoustine with mini rice and ant powder’ are of course a specific variety – saúva ants from the northernmost tip of the Amazon. Atala was introduced to them by a cook named Dona Brazi, who uses the ants as a spice to season her dishes. Atala likens the flavour of Brazi’s ants to lemongrass with undercurrents of cardamom and ginger; these ants are consumed not as a protein supplement but as a delicacy.

Atala is quick to point out that he didn’t discover any of the ingredients in his cuisine; rather his work at D.O.M. entails a rediscovery of indigenous and Amazonian produce. Behind every ingredient is a person; a producer, anthropologist, or someone he meets through his research. Likewise, Patterson works closely with local farmers and producers at Coi, which he opened in 2006. His book highlights the exchanges he’s had over the years in essays alongside each recipe, and his exploration of international ingredients that are cultivated in California by its diverse inhabitants.

“San Francisco is built on immigrants; since the Gold Rush when everyone came from all over the world and they brought their seeds with them,” Patterson says. “When I go to a market I have the whole world in a way, and so what I do is I try and learn ‘How are these ingredients treated in their own culture and their own place?’ And then we adapt them.”

He gives the example of a dish that was on the menu at Coi in 2011 – Dungeness Crab and Beef Tendon Soup with Asian pear and finger lime (recipe below). The soup is based on traditional European bisque and incorporates finger limes, which are indigenous to Australia, and beef tendon, which is used in Asian cuisines. “What do you call it? I don’t know. I call it American food because we have a very polyglot culture as opposed to a culture like Brazil, which is like a tree that grows from one root. We’re just like a bunch of weeds that get thrown in one place and they all just spring up and curl around each other. So I think our food does express our culture but our culture is still in the process of making itself,” Patterson says.

Atala has formalized his relationship with Brazilian ingredients and producers through the creation of ATÁ Institute – an organization that promotes sustainability and fair trade practices throughout the food chain. He explains that it was during a backpacking trip in Europe in the ‘80s that he decided to become a chef. He worked in Belgium, France and Italy, and came to the realization that he would never be able to cook European food as well as someone who was born and raised there. “The difference between the good, the very good and the exceptional is basically in your lifetime of tasting,” Atala says.

Once Atala decided to put his main focus on Brazilian ingredients, he started his own research as the vast majority are not available in markets. He describes his initial process of going to Amazonas (a Brazilian state almost entirely covered by the Amazon rainforest) as “a very non-logistical way to bring those ingredients to my restaurant.” As his relationships with producers grew deeper, he began to see that there was potential for something bigger than a single restaurant.

“First of all, everybody knows about natural conservation. Everybody knows that we need to protect rivers, sea, land, forests; we can’t forget the natural being, which is the human being,” Atala says. “People from the forest, people from the sea, they might be supported as well. The food chain can be a very powerful weapon.” Through work with Baniwa peoples and other indigenous groups, ATÁ Institute strives to create a market for ingredients such as Amazonian fruits and river fish, which Atala believes to be undervalued or forgotten in Brazil, and also to inspire young chefs.

“As chefs we have been trained to see into the dish. Now it’s time to understand not only the dish, the kitchen section, the whole entire kitchen, the whole entire restaurant but the big picture, and to show people that Brazilian ingredients are a possible dream for Brazilian people,” Atala says. Patterson points to the work of internationally celebrated chefs such as Gastón Acurio in Peru, René Redzepi in Denmark, and Enrique Olvera in Mexico as evidence that restaurants today have more opportunities to shift cultural perception than at any other time in history.

The value proposition is changing; people are starting to believe that their own ingredients should have the highest value – a position long held by imported ingredients. Patterson relays a conversation he had a few years ago with a chef in Lima about people’s willingness to pay for Peruvian potatoes grown at 4,000 metres; an extraordinary, unique ingredient. The feeling was that if people were spending money, they wanted to have European food; Peruvian food was perceived as being cheap. “But now that’s changing and one of the ways it’s changing is through food and people’s interest in food,” Patterson says. “I think that’s an incredibly positive thing that’s happening around the world. The biggest effect is that people within the country have more pride and more sensitivity to their own place and what can be discovered in their own place.”

INSTRUCTIONS

Simmer the tendons in lightly salted water for 4 to 5 hours, until they’re tender. Cool and thinly slice. Stain and save the resulting liquid.

Cook and clean the crab as on page 176. Season the crab meat with salt if necessary.

To make the soup, smash the shells and sear in a large pan in pure olive oil. Add the onion and fennel, and cook for 5 minutes, until softened. Add the white wine, reduce by half, and then add the tendon stock, vegetable stock and chile. Simmer for 1 ½ to 2 hours, until flavorful. Strain and season with lime juice and salt. It should be more rich than acidic.

To serve, combine the crab meat, sliced tendon, diced Asian pear, finger lime and snipped cilantro stem in a mixing bowl. Season with salt. Divide the mixture between 6 warm bowls, and heat the bowls in a salamander for a minute to warm the crab. Garnish with several small pieces of cilantro on top, and sprinkle with a little piment d’Espelette. Pour the soup around and stir to combine.

]]>http://o.canada.com/life/food/adventurous-eating-chefs-alex-atala-and-daniel-patterson-on-insects-and-openness/feed4Chefs Alex Atala, left, and Daniel Patterson are pictured in Toronto on October 15, 2013lbrehautAnts and pineapple, left, and cashews 'in natura' from D.O.M.: Rediscovering Brazilian Ingredients by Alex AtalaYoung Carrots Roasted in Hay, left, and Monterey Bay Abalone from Coi: Stories and Recipes by Daniel PattersonOkra, okra, okra from D.O.M.: Rediscovering Brazilian Ingredients by Alex AtalaAbalone/Duck Tongue from Coi: Stories and Recipes by Daniel PattersonBrazil Nut MacaronDungeness Crab and Beef Tendon SoupRestaurant offers discount to diners who hand over their phones during dinnerhttp://o.canada.com/life/beirut-restaurant-phone-discount
http://o.canada.com/life/beirut-restaurant-phone-discount#respondWed, 25 Sep 2013 19:54:55 +0000http://o.canada.com/?p=317870]]>We’ve all had friends who can’t help but dive into their smartphones during a meal instead of talking to those around them. Most of us have probably been that person, too, at one point or another.

The Lebanese restaurant offers a 10 per cent discount to any diners who hand their phones over to staff during their meals, a policy many people seem to admire. A photo posted on Reddit last Tuesday of a restaurant poster advertising the promotion made it to the front page of the influential site and has spawned numerous approving news stories on this side of the world.

A promotion from the Bedivere Eatery & Tavern in Beirut, Lebanon, asking patrons to park their devices with staff during meals in exchange for a discount.

The aim of the discount is to get Bedivere customers to have more meaningful interactions over dinner rather than staring at their screens between bites. The offer is 10 per cent off “if you leave your phone in our custody & socialize,” reads a poster for the restaurant.

The Bedivere isn’t the first place to make headlines for giving customers incentives to unplug. Last year a restaurant in Los Angeles instituted a similar policy and offered a five per cent discount for those who handed over their devices.

If this trend continues, we might just be forced to make eye contact and talk to one another again.

Take Our Poll]]>http://o.canada.com/life/beirut-restaurant-phone-discount/feed0tried of the phoneishmaeldaroA promotion from the Bedivere Eatery & Tavern in Beirut, Lebanon, asking patrons to park their devices with staff during meals in exchange for a discount.Spilling your coffee? Just ask for another lid, says Tim Hortonshttp://o.canada.com/life/food/tim-hortons-ask-for-dome-style-lids
http://o.canada.com/life/food/tim-hortons-ask-for-dome-style-lids#commentsWed, 21 Aug 2013 11:50:58 +0000https://postmediacanadadotcom.wordpress.com/?p=298356]]>For all the commotion surrounding the quality of Tim Hortons lids and whether they spill on or scald customers, the coffee chain has a pretty simple solution: just use another lid.

Although the iconic coffee chain is still best known for its double-doubles, Tim Hortons has been expanding its menu in recent years in an effort to compete with Starbucks and McDonald’s, offering more upscale drinks like lattés and Americanos.

Tim Hortons has dome-style lids on many these specialty beverages and company spokesperson Michelle Robichaud says customers can ask for one of these instead.

“We encourage any of our guests who might prefer a dome style lid to request it when they place their order,” she told the Financial Post Tuesday.

The whole firestorm (coffee tsunami?) was touched off last week when Calgarian Bryan Hansen posted a letter to Tim Hortons on Reddit and Facebook, apparently giving voice to the frustrations of many other coffee drinkers who had suffered in silence.

Hansen’s primary complaint was about spillage, especially whilst driving, which the flat lids with their wide openings did little to prevent.

“Have you ever tried pulling open your lid in a vehicle, setting the coffee down, and then turning a corner? Disastrous,” read Hansen’s letter in part.

Although the company acknowledged the complaint, it suggested little would change in an email to Canada.com last Friday. Offering more spill-proof domed lids, however, ought to make Hansen and his followers happy.

]]>http://o.canada.com/life/food/tim-hortons-ask-for-dome-style-lids/feed2Tim Hortons cupsishmaeldaro‘Where Chefs Eat’: 400 of the world’s best chefs share their favourite restaurantshttp://o.canada.com/life/food/where-chefs-eat-400-of-the-worlds-best-chefs-share-their-favourite-restaurants
http://o.canada.com/life/food/where-chefs-eat-400-of-the-worlds-best-chefs-share-their-favourite-restaurants#commentsThu, 24 Jan 2013 20:39:41 +0000http://o.canada.com/?p=187015]]>If anyone knows where to find the best late-night eats, it’s a chef. Post-evening service hangouts, breakfast spots, local favourites, bargain and high-end eateries are all included in Where Chefs Eat (Phaidon, January 2013) – an international restaurant guidebook featuring over 2,000 restaurant picks from more than 400 chefs.

Edited by food critic and co-founder of The World’s 50 Best Restaurants awards Joe Warwick, the book includes personal recommendations from world-renowned chefs such as René Redzepi of Copenhagen’s Noma, Heston Blumenthal of British restaurant The Fat Duck, David Chang of the New York-based Momofuku restaurant group, and Alex Atala of São Paulo’s D.O.M. Throughout his career, Warwick has been lucky enough to interview chefs both abroad and in his native U.K., and he often relies on chef recommendations when travelling somewhere new. “They know what’s going on. They know what the competition is doing – they get out and eat in other people’s restaurants – and they share.” he says.

Chef Ferran Adrià of El Bulli on July 23, 2003 (Photo: Getty Images)

Part of the inspiration for the book came from one of Warwick’s visits to El Bulli – Spanish chef Ferran Adrià’s Michelin 3-star restaurant that was located in Roses, Catalonia. The restaurant had put together a few pages of restaurant recommendations to give to guests – a list of trusted and loved places that they would recommend to friends. “I think that’s the idea with [Where Chefs Eat]. It’s where you’d send your friends,” Warwick says. He adds that unlike other guidebooks and recommendation sites, the chefs have put their names on their selections. “It’s almost like it’s the same as when they cook. If they send you somewhere shoddy, you’re going to go, ‘Why should I eat in this guy’s restaurant? He doesn’t even know how to pick a restaurant to go and eat in!’”

Warwick’s experience with The World’s 50 Best Restaurant awards influenced his approach in putting together the book somewhat. He felt that unlike the awards, the label “best” had to be qualified. “The idea with this was to get chefs to pick restaurants for specific things – not to just sort of say, ‘Oh, you know, what is your favourite?’” he says. Chefs submitted restaurants according to eight different categories: breakfast, late night, regular neighbourhood, local favourite, bargain, high end, wish I’d opened and worth the travel.

In the “wish I’d opened” category, there was one overwhelming favourite – Noma – which was recommended by 32 chefs. However, the book doesn’t rely on rankings. Whether one chef recommended it or 30, every restaurant got a listing. “I think the chefs liked the idea that it wasn’t going to be a ranking. It was an inclusive thing and they got into the spirit of it,” Warwick says. “Some chefs sent in their surveys and then they sent another email going, ‘Oh! And there’s also this place that I forgot about.’ And then you’d get another email a week later. ‘I was thinking the other day and actually I should have mentioned this place as well.’”

With travellers increasingly planning trips around where and what they’re going to eat, Where Chefs Eat was designed as a starting point to dining in major cities and some more obscure destinations. Warwick estimates that he has eaten at 500 of the approximately 2,000 restaurants listed in the book, and has made discoveries of his own in putting the book together. “Some of the restaurants came across so it just makes me really want to go there,” he says. “There’s a herring wagon in Stockholm. There’s a hot dog stand in Stockholm again. There’s a thing called a wet burger in Istanbul that I just researched, which is basically a burger that they steam in this really pungent, garlic, chili oil that sounds terribly messy but incredibly delicious. There’s the best ham sandwich in Barcelona, so those sorts of things are really interesting as well.”

Recommendations from Canadian chefs such as Vancouver’s Vikram Vij, Toronto’s Claudio Aprile, Montreal’s Ségué Lepage, and St. John’s Jeremy Charles are included in the book with Medina (breakfast, Vancouver), Chantecler (high end, Toronto), Café Sardine (late night, Montreal), Bonavista Social Club (local favourite, Bonavista, Newfoundland and Labrador) and Haisai (wish I’d opened, Singhampton, Ontario) making appearances. Warwick adds that he expected recommendations in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver but was pleasantly surprised to see several Newfoundland restaurants submitted. “It’s great,” he says laughing, “It kind of makes me want to go to Newfoundland!”

]]>http://o.canada.com/life/food/where-chefs-eat-400-of-the-worlds-best-chefs-share-their-favourite-restaurants/feed1Where Chefs Eat: A Guide to Chefs' Favourite RestaurantslbrehautChef Ferran Adrià of El Bulli Chef René Redzepi of Noma‘Edulis’: Caballo and Nemeth on establishing ‘Canada’s Best New Restaurant’http://o.canada.com/life/food/edulis-caballo-and-nemeth-on-establishing-canadas-best-new-restaurant
http://o.canada.com/life/food/edulis-caballo-and-nemeth-on-establishing-canadas-best-new-restaurant#respondThu, 08 Nov 2012 15:05:17 +0000http://o.canada.com/?p=145601]]>Chef Michael Caballo describes the food served at Toronto’s Edulis as “a cuisine of inspiration.” Caballo and his wife Tobey Nemeth established the acclaimed restaurant with the desire to combine their love of European-style bistros with the bounty of southern Ontario.

Dishes change as Caballo is inspired by the daily offerings of local farmers and suppliers, with the menu changing gradually throughout any given week. There is also a carte blanche dinner menu option – “Put your belly in our hands (we promise to be nice)…” – and a European set lunch menu on Sundays.

Current menu items such as Black and White Boudin Chanterelles, Smoked Apple Jus, and Roasted Duck Breast with Peeled Tomatoes, Wild Dandelion, Lobster Mushrooms and Duck Skin Crumbs evidence the pair’s love of wild and foraged foods, particularly mushrooms. The restaurant’s name is Latin for edible as well as the name of their favourite wild mushroom – the Boletus edulis – the porcini or cep. “And to us it’s evocative of the old-fashioned or tradition. All those beautiful things,” Nemeth explains.

PHOTO: Christopher LewisThe interior of Edulis

Caballo and Nemeth opened Edulis on April 27, 2012 and the restaurant has since gained a devoted following and critical acclaim. enRoute recently named it Canada’s Best New Restaurant 2012, and Maclean’s included it as one of Canada’s 50 Best Restaurants. The two had always dreamed of opening their own restaurant and left Toronto in 2008 with the intention of finding a suitable place. After four years of travelling and cooking in Spain, Italy, B.C. and Panama, in what Nemeth describes as, “a combination of professional sabbatical and adventure-seeking,” they learned that Anton Potvin was selling Niagara Street Café.

Caballo had served as executive chef at Niagara Street Café from 2005 to 2008, and both he and Nemeth immediately recognized the space as being perfect for their endeavour. “We always saw it as that perfect proportion, the fact that it’s on a side street. There’s an intimacy and tranquility to the place that we loved,” Nemeth says. “We always held the image of it as an idea of a place that we loved but without ever imagining that it might become available. So it was a magical moment when we found out that was happening.” Caballo adds that the timing was right, saying, “Just in the last year we started thinking about [moving back to Toronto] again – about how great the bounty of produce is and the connection to suppliers, and how special it is here. A light went off and it felt right. Right timing, right place, and we needed to do it.”

PHOTO: Christopher LewisThe exterior of Edulis

The four years the pair spent travelling and working internationally has had a major impact on their approach with Edulis. “Travel and reading are the two most important things for people to do in this business. If you were to tell young cooks to do two things it would be to travel and eat, and read,” Caballo says. “Just seeing how they grow a certain vegetable in the countryside in Italy or something you don’t have [here], just that relation with the earth that you see, maybe not here as much as you do when you’re really immersed in something [abroad]. It affects how you look at everything.”

Caballo finds daily inspiration in the great French chefs such as Vincent La Chapelle. “Ma Gastronomie, the Fernand Point book, is the epitome of what every cook who sets food in a kitchen should read,” he says. “It’s about the ethics and the joy of this business. It’s really beautiful. That book probably inspires me at least once every single day. But it’s more just that personality of chef that I love.”

Wild and foraged ingredients are central to Caballo’s dishes, and also to his process, “For me, mushroom hunting is a personal thing. I enjoy going out, solitary in the forest and hunting and turning over leaves. It’s a time alone with your thoughts and a wonderful time for inspiration,” he says. Caballo grew up in Edmonton, Alberta but didn’t start foraging for wild ingredients until he was introduced to the practice at Mugaritz – a restaurant in the countryside outside of San Sebastián, Spain – approximately 10 years ago where one of his daily tasks was picking wild flowers and herbs.

“It was a short experience – just a couple of months – but it was extremely influential in my mindset as a cook and it’s a really wonderful place. It’s like a temple,” Caballo says. “And I had come off working at a place in Madrid, which kind of did the opposite to me. It was a great place to get food but it was a very harsh environment.” Working at Mugaritz renewed his inspiration and offered new insight into what cuisine at that level could be. “I was really, really touched by the picking of the herbs wildly and that set me off on a path of acquiring knowledge, especially with mushrooms, but with leafy things as well,” he says. “It was great. It’s a great place. Like I said, it was very short but it changed the way I look at a kitchen and food. And how I comport myself in a kitchen as well.”

The model of Caballo in the kitchen and Nemeth, also a chef, managing the business and front of the house is one that they had tested in Panama. “We were running a hotel and restaurant there, and we were in these roles. I was the general manager and Michael was the executive chef. And we loved it,” Nemeth says. “We worked together really well that way and I think there’s an ideal in that, that I can jump in and help in the kitchen and that we both know on both sides that someone has our back.”

The hands-on nature of running a small, 32-seat restaurant is ideal for Caballo and Nemeth. They have a small staff – two in the kitchen and three in the dining room – that Nemeth refers to as being like family, “I worked with [our dining room staff] for years when I was chef at Jamie Kennedy Wine Bar and one of them worked here for Anton [Potvin] for many years. It’s just a return to somewhere very comfortable for all of us, which is really nice.”

]]>http://o.canada.com/life/food/edulis-caballo-and-nemeth-on-establishing-canadas-best-new-restaurant/feed0Tobey Nemeth and Michael CaballolbrehautThe interior of EdulisThe exterior of EdulisLightly smoked herring à l’huile, left, and Chantecler chicken baked in hayHead out to New West when Vancouver starts to get boringhttp://o.canada.com/news/head-out-to-new-west-when-vancouver-starts-to-get-boring
http://o.canada.com/news/head-out-to-new-west-when-vancouver-starts-to-get-boring#respondFri, 07 Jun 2013 19:50:33 +0000http://o.canada.com/?p=261151]]>Travellers who are bored with Manhattan look for new thrills in New York’s City’s outer boroughs. If you’re getting bored with Vancouver, then head out to that city’s suburbs to see some new sights.

It may be a bit of hyperbole, but the folks in New Westminster like to think of their town as Vancouver’s Brooklyn, a once proud city that went through hard times, but is rebuilding itself with a cooler image.

The first step to reboot a neighbourhood starts with the name. New Westminster was fine when Queen Victoria was on the throne, but these days, everyone calls it New West.

Vancouver’s expensive real estate market is helping fuel growth in New West. Priced out of the market, plenty of young people are heading further afield for more affordable places to live and plant roots. New West is benefitting from that movement and some of the city’s downtown trendsetters are following their customers out to where they live.

One of them is chef Angus An. This culinary dynamo who is the owner of Maenam, arguably Vancouver’s finest Thai restaurant, has just opened a new eatery in the River Market at Westminster Quay. It’s a casual Thai restaurant named Longtail, after a type of boat that is common in Thailand.

Chef An said his inspiration was the night markets in Thailand. He thought Vancouver lacked “gourmet” fast food so he thought quality Thai food would fill that niche.

“People want to eat well. They want to east fast, but they don’t want to eat junk,” he told me.

Longtail is just one of several interesting restaurants in the River Market. Neighbouring Re-Up BBQ is another. It’s a name known to connoisseurs of Vancouver’s downtown food carts. They serve delicious barbecue platters and sandwiches.

Step out from the River Market and you’ll find yourself on the the Waterfront Esplanade, a kilometre-long boardwalk that lines the Fraser River. It’s the ideal spot to soak up the atmosphere of New West and the river that is so important to the city’s past and present.

Before Victoria took the title away, New Westminster was once the capital of British Columbia. During its heydey, it was a town built upon river traffic carrying natural resources such as timber and gold from the heart of the province towards the sea.

The river remains the beating heart of New West. You can walk or cycle the entire length of the esplanade and watch the tugboats and barges scurry past or simply watch the water flow. At the end of the boardwalk, you can explore newly-opened Westminster Pier Park. It’s an innovative green space that is half on land, half on water and a great place to relax.

For a closer look at the city’s river history, a stop at the Samson V museum along the boardwalk is in order. It is housed in the last steam-powered sternwheeler to operate in Canada.

Another entrepreneur who is bringing some cool to New West is Frank Gregus. He’s one of the co-owners of Pacific Breeze Winery which bills itself as Canada’s first urban garage winery.

Rather than be grape growers, they thought they would create wine using the best grapes they could buy from the open market.

“If mother nature decides to be kind it will decide whether you have a good year or not,” said Gregus. Selecting which grapes they buy when it’s time to bottle a new batch means they don’t have to rely on Mother Nature’s whims to control the quality of their product. Their signature wine brands are Killer Cab and Big Red, which you can buy at the winery which is located in an unremarkable industrial park not far from the river front.

There are a handful of accommodation options in New West, but there is only one full-service hotel and that is The Inn on The Quay. It is conveniently located on the Riverfront Esplanade and neighbours the River Market.

This building’s tiered construction certainly stands out as it juts out over the esplanade into the river and once you see it, you won’t be surprised to learn that its design was inspired by cruise ships.

“We’re the only hotel in Vancouver that has water views from every room,” said the hotel’s director of Sales, Lana Berar, commenting on the building’s design.

The hotel is 25-years-old, but recent renovations have brought it completely up to date and each of its 126 rooms feature large windows that give you gorgeous views of the river and private balconies that give you more room to breathe.

Amenities like free wi-fi, weekly wine tastings, plush bathrobes and spa-like baths only add to the enjoyment of your stay. If the food at the neighbouring River Market wasn’t enough for you, the hotel’s attached Boathouse Restaurant has an expansive menu.

It’s also conveniently located a few blocks from the SkyTrain station so you can travel to downtown Vancouver in under half an hour.

New Westminster may not have as many hipsters per square kilometre as Brooklyn, but it’s working hard at transforming itself into a cool place to live and to visit.

]]>http://o.canada.com/news/head-out-to-new-west-when-vancouver-starts-to-get-boring/feed0New West, B.C. tug boatmarkstachiewVancouver Chef Angus AnThe esplanade in New West, BCRiver boat at New WestPacific Breeze WineryInn at the Quay, New West, B.C.iBurger could be the future of foodhttp://o.canada.com/business/iburger-could-be-the-future-of-food
http://o.canada.com/business/iburger-could-be-the-future-of-food#respondFri, 01 Mar 2013 17:36:22 +0000http://o.canada.com/?p=207857]]>In Montreal, there’s a cool restaurant where customers order food using touch screen tabletops. Is this the future of food?]]>http://o.canada.com/business/iburger-could-be-the-future-of-food/feed0williamwolfewylieRelationships: Crying in a restauranthttp://o.canada.com/news/relationships-crying-in-a-restaurant
http://o.canada.com/news/relationships-crying-in-a-restaurant#respondThu, 10 Jan 2013 14:30:46 +0000http://o.canada.com/?p=180107]]>If you are going to be in a relationship, at some point, you may find yourself crying in a restaurant.

It started so innocently. Lunch and a trip to TIFF to see the Bond exhibit. We sat at the table and he held my hands in his. Our server came over to us immediately.

“Can I get you anything?”

We responded that we wanted two waters please and our intertwined hands clearly stated that all we wanted to do was stare into each others’ eyes for a bit. I know, it’s insufferable, but we’re in love. When you are in love, restaurants aren’t just for eating. They are places where you can sit across from your beloved and watch him chew, which is just the most beautiful thing in the world. You can accidentally on purpose brush knees under the table, and tilt your head and smile.

And you can also lay out what could be wrong with the relationship you are building, as my boyfriend did last Thursday.

He turned over his fears on the table in the restaurant like Tarot cards: This is the Queen of Incompatibility. This is the Ace of Distance. And here is the Blind Man representing the uncertainty of the future. He spread all his fears out on the table, and I looked at them and then at him, and then back at the table, overwhelmed.

I started to tear up. My face pinched itself together, insisting, “I will not cry in public,” and my tear ducts kept whining, “But I’m really upset!!!!” Around the time my tear ducts started winning the tug of war, our server came by. He got to “Can I take…” saw my cry face, and spun away.

I looked out the window. We were silent for a long time. And then we talked, and were silent some more. And I cried some more. Our server passed us on the way to somewhere (anywhere) else, with no intention of stopping at our emotionally charged table. I stopped him, politely, and said we were ready to order. If I have to be here a while, I might as well eat something, I thought. I looked at my menu and ordered the first thing that looked good: kale salad.

“Would you like grilled salmon or grilled chicken with that?” our waiter asked. It’s never too awkward to up-sell.

“Yes, please. Salmon.” I said.

My boyfriend smiled. “I’ll actually have the kale salad, too.”

I laughed.

“With chicken or salmon?” suggested our unshakeable waiter.

“Chicken, please.”

“See, we’re not so different. We both like kale salad,” I said.

“We sure do,” my boyfriend said as he reached over and held my hands.

“Chicken and fish aren’t so different,” I said, “It’s the kale salad that matters.”

“Very true,” he said. “Very true.”

Restaurants tend to put a microscope on relationships.

Restaurants tend to put a microscope on relationships. Maybe it’s the stark call-back to a first date, and you can feel how much your feelings have changed since then. Maybe it’s the silence that descends when two people are forced to sit across from each other. I’ve sat near a couple breaking up before. Their food came just as they decided it was over. Neither of them seemed very hungry. I’ve sat near a couple who would clearly eventually break up because they had nothing in common, listening to their silence punctuated by the saddest small talk. (“The water is good.” “Mmm hmm, just the right temperature.”) I remember working in restaurants myself and moving from table to table, feeling various degrees of compatibility and incompatibility. There’s something about those tiny tables that make it hard to hide. The best we can do is leave a good tip (crying adds 5 per cent) and try and get out of there in one piece.

Take Our Poll]]>http://o.canada.com/news/relationships-crying-in-a-restaurant/feed0heartofthematter730newloriisber1xolori21A philosophical approach to foodhttp://o.canada.com/life/food/a-philosophical-approach-to-food
http://o.canada.com/life/food/a-philosophical-approach-to-food#respondThu, 24 May 2012 17:38:22 +0000http://blogs.canada.com/?p=55992]]>At first glance, Café Fiorentina(http://cafefiorentina.com) appears to be a fairly typical European-style café. But a closer inspection reveals far more to the picture.

A cute but unassuming spot, small but cozy, the café resides on Danforth Avenue in Toronto’s east end. And, in less than a year, it has become something of a destination to rival a few of its more established neighbours – hardly a small achievement in a part of town well-known for its restaurants and eateries.

But this café is cut of a decidedly different cloth. Co-chefs Tina Leckie (who also owns the café) and Alex Chong bring to it a passion for great food, as well as a strict philosophy for how to source, prepare and serve it. It’s a modus operandi honed through years of hard work under the guidance of some of Toronto’s best-known chefs and restaurateurs, all accumulated prior to opening the café in August of 2011.

Leckie has been working in restaurants and bakeries since high school, when she took on a co-op job with Dufflet, a well-known Toronto pastry shop. Later, while completing her business degree (majoring in hospitality), Leckie took on a staging position at Opus, where she mostly helped out in the kitchen and took note of her surroundings.

Since then, through a stint with acclaimed chef Michael Stadtlander at Eigensinn Farm and a six-year tenure at Celestin in midtown Toronto – with a break in between spent working at Epi Breads bakery café, where she met Chong – Leckie worked in a variety of unique culinary environments.

Eventually, however, she reached a point when she felt the need to do her own thing – and the time had come to make a decision. She left Celestin – where she had become sous-chef – to open a café.

“You get tired of working under people who have different values than you do,” says Leckie. “[I started to feel like] what I believe in is this and I understand it’s what they believe in, but it’s not necessarily what I believe in. . . [You] hit a point in your life where you [think], well, I have no major commitments. I don’t have kids, I’m not married, I don’t own a car, I don’t own a house. If I’m going to do it, it might as well be now.”

Chong, for his part, has worked for such well-known chefs as Susur Lee, Masayuki Tamaru – and finally Michael Caballo, with whom he worked at Niagara Street Café (now Edulis). He then spent some time in Chianti, Italy, working with Caballo at La Petraia, Michael Grant and Susan McKenna Grant’s farm and restaurant.

It was through Chong’s experience at La Petraia, as well as his work with Caballo, that he gained a passion for creating dishes from fresh, locally-sourced ingredients – and working with whatever is available at any given time.

“[La Petraia is] a really gorgeous place,” Chong recalls. “[It’s] a bio-dynamic farm. You raise your own animals; everything that we [would] serve to the guests [came] off the farm. We pressed our own olive oil. . . And if we were looking for something else that we weren’t growing, we just walked off the property into the forest, picked wild apples. It was pretty amazing.”

Alex Chong picks vegetables from a garden. “I learned a lot from (Michael Caballo). He uses the best of ingredients, only of that moment. It’s only here for a couple of weeks.You only use it then, then it’s gone.” (Photo: Supplied photo/Tina Leckie/Cafe Fiorentina)

It’s this philosophy towards fresh food that Leckie and Chong enthusiastically adopted for their new café. The two of them spend hours each week sourcing their ingredients from local suppliers, or even sometimes foraging for it themselves. Their meats are often purchased from the Meat Dept, a small butcher shop across the street from the café, which in turn works exclusively with small farmers. And they’re adamant about not using anything that’s out-of-season.

The menu, consequently, changes every day – and usually multiple times per day. If they get chicken one week, they’ll make something different out of it each day. If they run out of an ingredient for a panino one afternoon, they’ll change things up again and offer something new. It may sound a bit complicated, but it’s exactly how they want things to be, not to mention a perk of being in charge.

“[I love] having that freedom to say, ‘No, I don’t want to buy tomatoes in January.’ Because they’re disgusting. So I’m not going to do that. And if a customer comes in and asks, ‘Can I have tomatoes on my salad?’ No. We don’t offer that. But we can give you tomato chutney or some preserves that we’ve made with a tomato base.'”

A selection of meats on offer at Cafe Fiorentina. “We don’t make our own cheeses,” says Leckie. “But all the charcuterie, all the breaking down of the meats. . . we’ll form them in some way, we’ll braise them, cook them.” (Photo: David Kates/Postmedia News)

Holding to such a strict set of principles, of course, isn’t easy, and has presented a number of challenges for the owners. First and foremost is the cost. Sourcing the foods they want is rarely cheap, for example, and yet they’re hesitant to pass the premium costs onto their customers.

“When . . . I’m buying meat at an extraordinary amount of money and I’m making very little on a sandwich that I’m selling for not enough money, it’s challenging,” says Leckie. “But at this point in the game, I’m not trying to be rich. I’m trying to keep [menu items] at an affordable level so that people can come in and not feel like, ‘How much am I spending on that?’ But at the same point they’re getting to try something that’s really good.”

It also requires a lot of time and effort to find the right ingredients. Leckie and Chong spend countless hours at farmers’ markets, sometimes chatting with farmers to find out when they bring in certain foods. Other times, they’ll go out foraging for fresh ingredients themselves.

Naturally, however, some menu items are popular enough that they have remained constant. The farm egg salad, for instance – made with fresh heritage eggs sourced from a farmer friend – has been popular enough that they’ve had to offer it at least once every week.

Tina Leckie shows off a carton of heritage eggs, a key ingredient on the menu at Cafe Fiorentina. “All our eggs come from a friend farmer that I have,” says Leckie. “They’re all beautiful, all multi-coloured. They’re all heritage eggs.” (Photo: David Kates/Postmedia News)

The customers, for their part, have turned out to be receptive to the changing menu.

“They’re extremely loyal,” says Leckie. “They value good food. They value local and house-made. So for that it’s really easy. And I have some customers who are absolutely fantastic. If they see my excitement in something . . . they’re like, ‘Done. Sold. Give me whatever you’re talking about. I want to try it.'”

The menu at Cafe Fiorentina. “Every day, sometimes twice a day, sometimes three timesa day, one of those items will change,” says Leckie. “We make really small batches, and when it goes, it goes.” (Photo: David Kates/Postmedia News)

The response on the Danforth has been overwhelmingly positive. From opening day – they opened just ahead of the annual Taste of the Danforth street festival – local residents flocked to the new café, and many of them went on to become regular customers. It’s translated into considerable success for Leckie and Chong, and meant that they haven’t had to do much looking back.

And yet, as well as things appear to be going now, Leckie still faced the initial challenges of getting the business off the ground in the spring and summer months of 2011. After a false start when she attempted to partner up with someone else – a deal that ultimately fell through amid a dispute with the would-be landlord – Leckie might have given up. But her mother, Vanda Dell’Agnese, stepped in and has been a tireless supporter and motivator. A retired teacher, she now spends the bulk of her time helping out at the café.

“She grabbed my arm, said, ‘Okay, where do you want to go?'” Leckie recalls. “And I said, let’s go to the Danforth. So we walked up and down the Danforth, saw this sign for rent and immediately called them. I wouldn’t have this on the Danforth if she hadn’t come and banged on my door and said, don’t mope, get up and be strong.”

An anonymous investor, meanwhile, played a crucial role in helping Leckie get the business started.

“[The investor] didn’t ask too many questions. Just said, ‘I believe in you. This is your dream. Tell me what you need and we’ll try to make it work,'” says Leckie.

Even getting Chong to join her in the new business was hardly a sure thing at the time – although in retrospect it’s nearly impossible to imagine the business without their partnership at the centre. She managed to pull him away from a job as sous-chef at Didier to work with her at the café.

Alex Chong works in the kitchen at Cafe Fiorentina. “Alex and I fight to make a point to put things on the menu to try to sell people on,” says Leckie. “And once they have it, they love it. But to get it to sell is very difficult.” (Photo: Supplied photo/Tina Leckie/Cafe Fiorentina)

But for the most part, Leckie insists that the biggest challenge was the initial one, in striking out on her own. She claims not to dwell too much over the daily struggles.

“I’ve worked with cooks for 12 years. We all have dreams, we all say it and we all talk about it. But to actually quit your job and take that first step and say, okay, I’m going to go and do this, is really hard . . . And then once that hurdle is covered, everything else just kind of falls into place.”

Looking ahead, what can we expect from Leckie and Chong? While there are no big expansion plans – no additional locations, to be sure – they’re hoping to expand into dinner and take-out offerings, as well as catering for special events. They now have weekend brunches. But while they have widened their range of options, they remain steadfast about getting things right, always cautious not to overreach.

On that note, while they have shifted their hours to (just barely) cover dinner, they’re still hesitant to offer a dinner menu. Doing so, Leckie believes, would require them to lose a lot of the flexibility they currently enjoy as a café. And even while they now have a few take-out items and eventually hope to offer more, she wants to ensure that they don’t lose the high standard of quality that got them where they are.

For now, the plan is to stick to what they know, keep closely tuned in to what their customers are demanding, and use their best judgment.

And, as always, keep doing what they love to do.

Looking in from the front door at Cafe Fiorentina. (Photo: David Kates/Postmedia News)

]]>http://o.canada.com/life/food/a-philosophical-approach-to-food/feed0tina_alex2_620davidkatestina_kitchen_620alex_garden_620meats_620eggs1_620menu2_620alex_kitchen_620fiorentina_front1_620The feminine mesquite: Eva Longoria to open women’s steakhousehttp://o.canada.com/news/the-feminine-mesquite-eva-longoria-to-open-womens-steakhouse
http://o.canada.com/news/the-feminine-mesquite-eva-longoria-to-open-womens-steakhouse#respondFri, 07 Sep 2012 15:35:43 +0000http://o.canada.com/?p=105971]]>Rising up against the supposed macho oppression of steakhouses, actress Eva Longoria is set to open her own woman-targeted version – one designed to “create a feeling of empowerment” among female guests. Just call her the Betty Friedan of beef.

The Las Vegas restaurant, opening later this year, will feature such elements as dainty plates, a dance floor and a fashion catwalk. Even the chophouse’s name – SHe – is blatantly evocative of Longoria’s desired diners.

The only question that remains is: For the love of God, why?

“I know steakhouses are usually associated with men, but I can’t imagine that women feel discouraged to go to them,” says Karon Liu, a Canadian food writer. “I mean, are you intimidated by the Keg? Is it too phallic for you?”

Over the past few decades, women have gotten their own fitness clubs, travel agencies, spas and even hotel floors. So it’s not a huge leap to see the food industry court them in this manner. In fact, at a time when breastaurants are rampant – think Hooters, the Tilted Kilt and Twin Peaks – the real surprise may be that we’ve yet to see a major-market female equivalent.

Joel Gregoire, industry analyst for The NPD Group, says women’s commercial food service traffic in Canada grew by about six per cent between May 2008 and 2012, compared to roughly two per cent for men.

Morwenna Ferrier suggests the answer is simple: the notion of a woman-targeted restaurant is “backwards and embarrassing” – not to mention couched in cliche, as is evident by SHe’s addition of a catwalk.

“There seems to be this weird juxtaposition between food, the female physique and fashion,” says Ferrier, features editor for women’s magazine Grazia. “We had something called the fashion cafe here in London, opened by The Supermodels, which subsequently closed. Who wants to be reminded of what we look like – or rather don’t look like – while eating?”

Rebecca Tuvel, a doctoral candidate in feminist philosophy at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee, says it’s ironic that Longoria’s steakhouse – which will welcome men, but be aimed at women – is being framed as a step in the right direction. Tuvel takes a dim view of the fact women and animals are both routinely referred to as ‘pieces of meat,’ and both have their body parts ‘cut up’ for mass consumption.

“(Longoria’s) steakhouse has small plates presumably because all women have – or should have? – tiny appetites. And a catwalk featuring women with their body parts – read: finest cuts – on display,” she writes in an email. “The goal is what? To be able to eat a fine piece of ass, look at a fine piece of ass, all while maintaining your fine piece of ass.”

Notably, NPD Group’s Gregoire reports that female diners are less likely to order burger and beef entrees than their male counterparts, and more likely to order salad. But with women’s nearly 53 per cent market share, there are sure to be meat-lovers in the mix.

Liu, a food columnist for Toronto magazine The Grid, says he’s certain Longoria and her backers undertook market research to determine there’s an audience for a women’s steakhouse. He’s just not sure their execution, as described in a restaurant press release, will win women over.

“My mom loves a big steak,” says Liu. “If I took her there, she’d take one look (at the small plates) and be like, ‘What the hell is this?’”

]]>http://o.canada.com/news/the-feminine-mesquite-eva-longoria-to-open-womens-steakhouse/feed0Eva LongoriamistyharrisTravel Website of the Week: Foodspottinghttp://o.canada.com/travel/travel-website-of-the-week-foodspotting
http://o.canada.com/travel/travel-website-of-the-week-foodspotting#respondFri, 27 Jul 2012 16:43:50 +0000http://o.canada.com/?p=82886]]>One of the great pleasure of travel is the food.

Every place has its own culinary style and sampling local delicacies is a pleasure that all travellers enjoy.

So how do you find the best places to eat? There are lots of guidebooks that will recommend restaurants, but what is probably more interesting is to know what to eat. Instead of ordering familiar foods, you should be eating what the locals eat. That’s where Foodspotting helps.

The website is powered by a community of food lovers who upload photos and writeups of different dishes they’ve sampled in every corner of the globe. Other members comment and vote on their recommendations.

The site is simple to use. Pick a location and search the database. It will give you a ranked list of the best dishes served in that location.

Want to search for a particular dish, like where is the best poutine in Montreal? You can do that, too.

Passionate members of the site also create lists of favourites to guide you on your culinary explorations of a place. If you really like someone’s recommendations, you can follow that person on Foodspotting to keep tabs on their future submissions.

Considering that meal planning is often something that’s done at the last minute while you are on the go, this site is the sort of place you’d want to be able to access on a mobile device. Foodspotting makes it easy with apps they offer for iOS, Android, Windows and Blackberry that help you navigate their recommendations.

]]>http://o.canada.com/travel/travel-website-of-the-week-foodspotting/feed0foodspottingmarkstachiewModern Worldhttp://o.canada.com/discussions/modern-world
http://o.canada.com/discussions/modern-world#respondWed, 18 Jul 2012 00:56:30 +0000http://o.canada.com/?post_type=discussion&p=77111]]>There seems to be a widespread mission to ensure that even the diner tucked into the cobwebbiest corner has a personal television aimed straight at your forehead. Reb Stevenson argues that TV infestation is a growing problem in our bars, pubs and mid-range restaurants. Do you agree?]]>http://o.canada.com/discussions/modern-world/feed0tv-head smallhasanalanamTV screens wreck restaurantshttp://o.canada.com/technology/screens-wreck-restaurants
http://o.canada.com/technology/screens-wreck-restaurants#respondTue, 17 Jul 2012 17:43:27 +0000http://o.canada.com/?p=76743]]>On the weekend, my brother and I dined in the TV department at Future Shop.

Actually, it was a restaurant on Granville Street in Vancouver, but you could have swapped our waitress with a smarmy salesman blathering on about extended warranty and we wouldn’t have batted an eyelash.

Because, from where I was seated, I could see eight – EIGHT! – widescreen TVs.

(I think it’s an atavistic compulsion to make sure the thing flickering in your periphery isn’t a predator coming to swat off your head.)

TV infestation is a growing problem in our bars, pubs and mid-range restaurants. You can hardly get a meal without three screens doing jazz hands in the background. I know of a beautiful “traditional English pub” here in Victoria that went to the effort of decorating with dark wood, antique books and other Dickensian bric-a-brac. But why did they bother when the final touch was a hideous plethora of TVs?

I can only begin to imagine how many domestic disputes this phenomenon triggers. Remember when a terse “honey, my eyes are here” was directed at an amorous schmuck who was spellbound by a lady’s centre field? Now the guy’s attention is arrested by a muted ball game.

There seems to be a widespread mission to ensure that even the diner tucked into the cobwebbiest corner has a personal television aimed straight at his forehead.

I’m not arguing against special events shown in designated sports bars (Real Sports Bar in Toronto, with 4 million screens or so, springs to mind), but I am suggesting that between computers at work, video gaming, iPads, Netflix and cell phones, the rest of us are already screen-saturated.

Why should I have to turn my $19 fish and chips into a TV dinner? There seems to be a widespread mission to ensure that even the diner tucked into the cobwebbiest corner has a personal television aimed straight at his forehead. Sometimes mirrors are strategically employed.

I thought perhaps patios would be exempt from the screen invasion. What a fool I was! A trip to the corner pub revealed that Tiger Woods is amongst us, always.

Why don’t I just ignore it? Sure, I’ll ignore it when you can get lost in a book while eight clowns toot horns, shake fluorescent pom-poms and blast strobe lights at you.

What bothers me most is the message it sends: that human company doesn’t cut it. That I can’t endure one measly hour with a friend without backup entertainment.

According to a survey by Statistics Canada, the time we spend socializing face-to-face decreased by 7 per cent between 1998 and 2010 because we’re replacing it with electronic messengers. So cheapening what little time we do devote to old fashioned interaction seems tragic.

I worked at a pub in the UK for a year. In the “back bar” there was one TV – I repeat: one TV – that was activated for cricket, soccer and darts. There was also a front bar in which the most advanced piece of machinery was a coffee machine. No TV. No music, even. And you know what? People talked, laughed and bonded like you wouldn’t believe.

Restaurant owners, you did it with smoking and you can do it again.

When I set foot in your establishment, I want to be asked: “tv section, or non-tv section?”

]]>http://o.canada.com/technology/screens-wreck-restaurants/feed0tv-head smallrebstevensoncanadaBest of food and drink this weekhttp://o.canada.com/life/best-of-food-and-drink-this-week-9
http://o.canada.com/life/best-of-food-and-drink-this-week-9#respondFri, 04 May 2012 09:22:35 +0000http://blogs.canada.com/?p=50036]]>A round-up of some of our favourite recipes and food-related features from the past week:

Danish restaurant Noma won the title of world’s best restaurant for the third year in a row from The World’s 50 Best Restaurants, produced by Britain’s Restaurant Magazine. Here’s a look at the top 10.

Mother’s Day is coming up on Sunday, May 13, 2012. We put together a collection of gift ideas for foodie moms including a great new cookbook that celebrates fresh, seasonal produce, and an inspiring magazine about sharing food experiences with family and friends.

Here are three simple recipes that take little time to assemble or cook — and allow the flavour of the salmon to shine through: Gingered Salmon, Slow-roasted Salmon with Pea Purée, and Grilled Cedar-planked Salmon.

The dried, edible seed of a legume is an ancient, nutritious food and all the rage in trendy kitchens. Try our recipes for Thai Chickpea and Vegetable Curry, Bean, Cherry Tomato and Avocado Salsa, and Black Bean Brownies.

In defence of your health and your wallet, here is a list of superfoods that literally grow from the ground should you take the time to plant a few seeds.

And, to finish, some tasty inspiration from the blog and e-zine world:

– Lemon Balm and Raspberries Clafoutis from Pratos e Travessas
– Miss Moss: Food + Fashion Mash-Up from Bon Appétit
– Rick Bayless‘ Chilied Tortilla Soup with Shredded Chard from Food52 (I can personally attest to how delicious this soup is. We made it this week and it does take some time but it’s absolutely worth it!)
– Dark Chocolate Brownie Cake with Raspberry Goat Cheese Swirl from e-zine Llama’s Valley (page 114 if you want to skip right to it!)
– Kinfolk Brunch / San Francisco from 101 Cookbooks

]]>http://o.canada.com/life/best-of-food-and-drink-this-week-9/feed0MacaronslbrehautNomaMother's Day gifts for the foodieHarriet's gingered salmonThai Chickpea and Vegetable CurryGrow your own superfoodsWhy we are Tim Hortons, and Tim Hortons is ushttp://o.canada.com/uncategorized/why-we-are-tim-hortons-and-tim-hortons-is-us
http://o.canada.com/uncategorized/why-we-are-tim-hortons-and-tim-hortons-is-us#commentsMon, 07 Nov 2011 22:10:06 +0000http://blogs.canada.com/?p=23418]]>As I loaded my family into the car on a recent Saturday morning, on our way to see my friend’s new house, I took a minute to send her a quick text. “On my way now, do you want anything from Tim’s?”

If you’re a Canadian, you’re not wondering who Tim is or what I’d be taking from him; you already know that I was referring to Tim Hortons, a Canadian icon.

In response to my text, my friend declined, stating that some recent visitors had made the same offer and she had taken them up on it.

Sure enough, upon arrival, I saw the great Canadian staples; brown paper cups with steam billowing from their lids, yellow cardboard boxes with appetizing images of sweet, bite-sized treats and that familiar logo.

You don’t have to be a coffee drinker to be aware of Tim Hortons. You don’t even have to like doughnuts. Yes, that’s right, doughnuts, the proper Canadian spelling of the round, hole-in-the-middle, pastry-type desserts.

So what is it about Tim Hortons that is so appealing to so many Canadians? What draws us in and motivates us to wait in lineups longer than any other we would normally wait in?

If you’re a Canadian and you’ve been to a hockey rink on a cold Sunday morning, or in an office building any day of the week, you’re familiar with Tim Hortons. If you’ve done a favour for a friend and have been thanked with a coffee or ventured on a road trip, you know Tim Hortons. If your kid has gone off to college or you’ve attended a Santa Claus parade, you know Tim Hortons. And if you haven’t caught on to what I’m referring to, then perhaps you aren’t Canadian after all. For every Canadian knows the ever-impressionable Tim Hortons commercials.

Perhaps it’s the Tim Hortons marketing strategy that we can attribute this brand being engrained into our heritage. The 60-second vignettes really tug at your heartstrings and allow for consumers to relate on some level.

Take the Welcome to Canada commercial from 2010, for example. An immigrant father is seen shopping for winter coats. The scene changes to an early morning, blizzard-like view from his window. Next, we see the father in an airport, ordering two large coffees from Tim Hortons.

As we watch his young family arrive through the gates, the man becomes quite emotional. He greets his children with wide-open arms and shares a touching reunion with his wife, as a tear trickles from her eye. Onlookers are present to add to the obviousness of this momentous occasion.

The husband hands his wife one of the Tim Hortons coffees and says, “Welcome to Canada.” The wife looks down at the winter coats and asks, “What is this?”

The husband replies, “You’ll see.”

We then see the family dressed in their winter attire, coffees in hand, as they experience the cold and snow for the very first time. The ad ends with the father saying, ‘Welcome to Canada,” and we’re left with the words: “A coffee all our own.”

It seems impossible for one to view this commercial and not feel some sort of kinship with the family, or least our country. We are Canadian and, in the winter at least, this is what we have to offer: cold, snowy weather and our Tim Hortons coffee. It doesn’t get any better than that.

With the recent introduction to the menu of the hearty, comfort-food lasagna, it’s more evident than ever that Tim Hortons is attempting to establish itself as a feel-good, home-away-from-home for Canadians.

Sure coffee and lasagna might not come to mind as the perfect combination, but it doesn’t seem to matter. One can now visit Tim Hortons for breakfast, lunch and dinner and everything in between. It’s a one-stop shop and it makes you feel darn good.

I’m no marketing expert, and I’m not sure I need to be one in order to catch on to Tim Hortons’ clever and effective approach at solidifying the connection between their product and the consumer’s patriotism.

I am Canadian and I drink Tim Hortons coffee.

Kelly Connor is the creator, designer and author of City Mom, a blog that follows her adventures as she and her husband raise their daughter in the heart of downtown London, Ont. She is a freelance writer with a background in web design and Internet Technology.